The reforming of petroleum naphthas is carried out over catalysts which consist of a metal or metals dispersed on an acidic support such as alumina or silica-alumina. Such catalysts, possessing both metal and acid functionalities, simultaneously promote metal and acid catalyzed conversions of saturated hydrocarbons. Major reactions promoted by bifunctional catalysts are hydrogenation, dehydrogenation, isomerization, cyclization, hydrocracking and hydrogenolysis. The goal in the reformer is to maximize aromatics production at the expense of light gas make. Naphthenic molecules (alkylcyclopentanes and alkylcyclohexanes) are readily converted to aromatics, by a combination of isomerization and dehydrogenation reactions, within the first 10-40% of the total reformer train (a reformer train normally contains 3 to 4 reactors in series). The naphthene to aromatic transformation typically occurs with high (80-95%) selectivity. C.sub.6+ paraffinic molecules, in contrast, are more difficult to aromatize. Their conversion continues throughout the entire reformer train. Under similar reaction conditions, the generation of aromatic molecules via the dehydrocyclization of paraffins containing six or more carbon atoms is much less (15-60%) selective than naphthene aromatization. The lower selectivities found for paraffin dehydrocyclization result primarily from competitive hydrogenolysis and hydrocracking reactions. What is needed in the art is a reforming process catalyst capable of substantially improving the yield of aromatic molecules obtained from naphthenic and paraffinic hydrocarbons and mixtures of such hydrocarbons.